Early morning hours transform the usually busy European capital into a peaceful town. Multifaceted Ixelles belongs to the most attractive parts of Brussels. Next to posh shopping malls designer shops or the nicely illuminated town hall you’ll find such corners of morbid character.

I know, it’s not a nice photo – dust in the sky, bad scanning and post processing of an image from 2005. But I had to think of it while our politicians are banging their heads in Copenhagen. Nice statements but the reality is here. Each kWh of electricity produces almost 1.5 kg CO2! Leave alone the damage to the earth. But sure, this blog also consumes electricity…

Dawn seems to be the best time to capture the beautifully illuminated houses of Cologne. This type of traditional building belongs to the ‘bergische’ region, a low mountain range starting at the Eastern part of Cologne.

Encroaching ‘development’ not only threatens fauna and flora of Thielenbruch, also islands of autonomous living are at gun point. The authorities would like to extend car parking space by removing ‘untidy’ settlements.

Squeezed in between cities, railway lines, power lines, gas pipelines and motorways, a small nature reserve is determined to offer rare species protection against destruction and extinction. Due to the low light situations the ambiance these days is particular. Up to now I have been excited using my manual Nikkor lenses, however, the 20mm lens suffers from strong vignetting using open aperture. Yet another task to find a way to get rid of the vignetting…

Opposed to Markus’ yesterday’s advent photo I experienced a slightly different start of the festive Christmas season. The spring like weather – interrupted by a thunderstorm and followed by blue sky and a beautiful rainbow – flooded the nature with intensive colours. Some plants seem to resist the approaching winter – or don’t even believe anymore in its coming.